


keep that fire burning (the sun is coming soon)

by Crazyamoeba



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternative Universe - No Cult, Insecurity, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Trust Issues, although everything is discussed beforehand, and no decisions are made in the middle of heat, deals with pre-heat, dubcon, internalized shaming, issues surrounding masculinity, jacob seed is a button-pusher, purely because of the nature of heat, staci decides he wants to see what is up with this whole 'heat' thing, staci pratt has a terrible attitude
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-05-30 02:32:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15087089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazyamoeba/pseuds/Crazyamoeba
Summary: Staci Pratt is not quiet or submissive or delicate.He likes to fight, to challenge.But he would quite like to know what a heat feels like.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter deals with pre-heat, and the effects of Pratt coming off suppressants. There is no sex, heat or otherwise, in this chapter.
> 
> There is discussion of insecurity and trust issues, as well as masculinity issues.
> 
> Massive thanks to devils_trap, because she put up with so much of my ramblings about this and had so many great ideas that I piggybacked off that we pretty much rp'd this thing.

The sun was leeching through his hair, making it feel wet and heavy, making his scalp feel like it was being bitten by hundreds of hungry little insect mouths. The bristles of his own hair felt sharp and prickly, even made his hand itch where it was propping his head up on the open window of his hot-box of a car.

 

And far be it for him to complain about sunshine, but there were limits to his patience on a temperate day.

 

He had wandered into the gas station earlier, and even with the air conditioning frosting the aisles, it had been hot. Made his skin feel too tight, made the muscles in his jaw and legs tense up. Made him irritable and clammy and constantly teetering on the edge of letting out stupid, shameful sounds and tearing away from it all.

 

Even through the windscreen, the sun made his eyes water angrily and he wanted nothing more than to get away from it and the itchy feeling of _too much, not enough, not right, all wrong, go away._

 

He wanted to be able to shrug his shoulders and shuck everything off. The thought that it might be partly due to suppressants – or lack thereof – was one that he had been choking and smothering in an endless loop for the last couple of weeks.  
  


He was better than that. He wasn't going to suddenly start sucking at his job because he wasn't pretending to be a beta.  
 

He _couldn't_ be that. He _wouldn't_ be that. He was strong, and fuck everyone else who expected anything else.  
  


Except...that was kind of the problem, wasn't it?  
 

He wasn't fucking anyone right now. And he could feel the pinpricks on his skin, needling a little harder every day, like thousands of tiny clock hands counting down, drumming obnoxiously on his skin, warning him that time was Running Out.  
 

He cursed himself. He felt small and angry and hot, like a raw, naked thing left curled in the sun. He hated everyone. Wanted to say that he hated them more than he hated himself.  
  


But they weren't the ones who went off their suppressants, booked official fucking _heat leave –_ and it was horrifying enough having to make eye contact with Whitehorse when he signed those fucking papers, he might have to move to another state if that was for nothing - and then didn't actually think about who the hell he was going to turn to.

 

It had been a falling, slippery feeling, like losing the grip of one foot on black ice. Completely ignorant of the lack of purchase until his whole body was off-balance, arms flailing desperately to try to salvage something, to stop the whole damn package from hitting the ground, cold and hard.  
  


Except he was running out of things to try to grasp on to.

 

He had fucking tried. God, he had tried, and now the thought of his own hubris filled him with a sticky, metallic rage. Had he thought that he would just be able to stop taking his suppressants and suddenly every alpha in town would flock to him, enticed by his....what? Omega charms?  
  


Yeah. He had blinkered himself to every possible problem that could have arisen, and then had the audacity to be surprised when they spat in his face.

   
His first week off suppressants had been like looking into a fairground mirror. Only to be told that it was a perfectly ordinary one.

 

He had been....excited. God, it was pathetic to think of. No matter how much he had berated himself at the time, it would never be enough, and he would never forgive himself for letting his grip on The Way Things Were slip for as long as it had.  
  
He had been on suppressants ever since he had presented - late, because of fucking course. A long enough wait to be confusing and frustrating, he had been more than old enough to be devastated when the waiting ended.  
 

He wasn't meant to be this.  
  
   
He _couldn't_ be this.   
  


His mother had suspected for a while. A beta herself, she had nevertheless recognised that scents like his didn't stick around that long after puberty without it Being Something.  
 

In the seconds before he begged her to stop, she always assured him it was a lovely scent. Sweet and sugary and bright.  
  


All the things Pratt couldn't ever be. His father had looked at him with eyes full of vindication, as if wanting to point at him and jeer at his mother.  
  


_See? I told you it wasn't worth it._   
  


And even though he liked to think that he was nothing like his father, he had found himself thinking that very thing within a week of ditching his suppressants.

 

He got the stares he had been expecting and loathing and needing.   
 

His whole life had been one long balancing act of avoiding grasping and heated stares which looked straight through him without seeing anything other than his potential to submit prettily, and shouting and screaming and raging until those stares and all the others that skittered around him entirely had _no fucking option_ but to look and listen and consider the person he was trying to present to them.  
  


The Deputy. The pilot. The _man, the fucking man, never, ever forget that.  
_  

It had earned him a lot of other titles, too.  
 

Demanding, _difficult_. A shrill, nagging little bitch who wouldn't _shut the hell up._  
  


He didn't mind so much. Had learnt to smile into the descriptors with pointed teeth and restless eyes until people realised that naming the demon didn't rob it of power.  
 

The problem with this tactic had come creeping slowly around him like a sluggish high tide.  
 

People didn't like being around someone who was constantly fighting, constantly snarling and snapping their teeth and shouting and pushing all in an effort to prove a _point._ And Pratt couldn't much blame them.  
Being _on_ was exhausting and wearing. _He_ was exhausted and worn. Worn thin and down and anything but smooth. The constant friction only ever seemed to make him rougher and a part of him wished he could _stop –_ a part of him would always snuffle and whine and chafe with the urge to be _softer, smoother._ Quieter.  
 

He pushed that part down low.   
  
  
Until a few weeks ago, when he had prepared to let it rise, bloated and awful and waterlogged to the surface. Prepared to let it breathe for the first time and it terrified him.  
 

He had grown used to all the hostile stares, the ones which urged with resentful and unspoken chiding to be something a little more delicate.  
And then he had to bolster himself for the other, even less welcome stares that would greet his soft, raw parts being exposed to daylight. He wanted to hide from it, deny everything, disown it all.  
 

But if he was going to do this thing – if he was going to do this thing that seemed to mean _so fucking much,_ to be the be-all and end-all of being what he inexplicably was and what he had railed and raged and held out against for so long, but which now only succeeded in making him feel hollowed out and drained by his victory....  
 

If he was going to do this like a _proper omega_ then he was going to need them.  
 

Wasn't going to get a knot without making _show_ of it. No such thing as something for nothing.  
 

Although in the end, he didn't have to change anything; his scent did all the work for him, and even that small lack of agency was something that made him ache to reach for the bottle on his night stand – a full prescription, ready and waiting to go for when he had fulfilled this obligation to himself  
 

It didn't take long for people to notice.  
 

Walking through the grocery store on his usual late-night run; the cashiers who had been ringing his knock-off brand cereal for years suddenly seizing up for just a moment, eyelids faltering as they took an involuntary breath of this strange new smell.

Before they realised where it was coming from, and forced newly stiff limbs and unwilling eyes to bend to their task before he noticed their scrutiny.  
 

Traffic stops and bar fights and disputes between neighbours. A lot of swaggering, braying Alphas who had taken years to learn that jeering at him wouldn't make him cringe and submit, or descend into an uncontrollable rage that would have the local papers crowing about omegas on unsuitable career paths.

 

Suddenly the barely-there acquiescence of lessons learnt twisting into a different kind of quiet. Narrowed eyes and shallow, testing breaths, like snake tongues flitting into the air. Suddenly a lot easier to load them into the squad car.  
 

Suddenly and obsequiously polite despite the long, AC-less hours it took to book them at the station.  
 

It should have felt like power.  
 

It missed whatever mark it should have been aiming for.

 

-

 

The lights in the gas station were harsh, an almost silvery-blue that leant an odd and hostile tinge to everything and made the hair at the base of his neck stand on end.  
 

It did at least have functioning air conditioning, and for that reason alone Pratt didn't mind buying his groceries here instead of driving into town proper. Not that 'groceries' could really be an apt description for the mess of brightly-coloured, loudly-crinkling packets that he clutched in greedy, sweaty palms.  
  


He didn't smoke, he drank in moderation, and he had never gone down the substance abuse route. A ridiculous sweet tooth has always been his biggest vice.  
  


Normally he was able to exercise enough self-control to stay on top of things. Has to, as he was keenly aware of the depths to which his compulsive comfort-eating can plummet, given just the right number of bad days.  
Lately though, his urge to consume vast amounts of high-sugar treats aimed at young children whose young parents don't know better and teens who have stupid metabolisms has been reaching an insurmountable peak.  
 

Every time he stopped to refuel the squad car, he would leave with a packet of something brightly-coloured and squishy, stuffed into his back pocket for later. He'd shovel them down his throat whenever he got a chance between call-outs.  
 

Hope County is kind of quiet. There aren't many call-outs.  
 

He has taken to volunteering to do the morning coffee run for the day crew, a job which he would previously hiss and spit and throw the 'oh so you think omegas should serve their betters' card at until people rolled their eyes and gave up asking.  
  


They sold literal packets of nothing but powdered sugar and liquorice sticks at the coffee place. He didn't even like the liquorice. He used one stick as a kind of makeshift ant-eater tongue to scoop out all his prized sugar-ants, and then he would throw all the disgusting little black stalks into the nearest bin.  
  


Or give them to Whitehorse or Hudson. But he was trying to maintain a modicum of decency, and he wasn't proud of his clandestine activities. He tried to open the packets quietly if he was at his desk.  
 

 _Can't even develop a decent addiction like a man. Jesus, boy.  
_  

Pratt snorted angrily at the familiar voice in his head, squeezing his neon prizes close to his chest and stomped away from the voice like he could outrun it.  
 

In reality, all he managed to do was walk a short distance before his hoard spilt to the floor in a cheap and sugar-fueled firework of colour.  
  


“Take it easy there, Deputy. Vergin' on some reckless endangerment if you're not careful.”  
 

He felt a muscle twitch in his jaw and his fingers clench into fists as he stared mournfully down at his tainted stash.  
 

He was also very much surprised that he hadn't smelt Jacob Seed before he attempted to walk straight through him. Faint trace of gasoline, not so faint of sweat, jostling with a hot and earthy scent at the base of it all.  
  


Fucking Christ, he needed to leave this place.  
 

“No such thing for pedestrians, Jacob.” Not quite true, but damned if he's going to give Mountain Man an inch. “And you're not in a real great position to be talking about any kind of endangerment; didn't you lose your license yet?”  
 

Stupid, because he could smell the gasoline. If he turned his head just slightly to the left, he could see Jacob's truck at the pump.  
 

Jacob simply smirked – because why bother learning how to smile when a smug twist of the lips got people weak at the knees to please you? Dickbag.  
 

And then he bent to gather Pratt's shameful armful, and it was all he could do to stop him from hissing and whining at those prying hands. It only took one scoop of those ridiculous paws to gather all the craptastic treats together and to deposit them safely back in Pratt's arms. Two of Jacob's hands to one whole armful for Pratt.  
  


He felt his face flame hot and his tongue go dry, and his unsteady hands made a move to unscrew the cap from his bright blue sports drink before he could even form the thought.  
  


Jacob raised an eyebrow, and the small flick of his gaze downwards, towards Pratt's pile of sugary shit made his face unsure as to just what type of hot it wanted to be.  
 

“Then again, if that's what's fuelling all 160 pounds of pissy attitude and foul temper,” Jacob's teeth glinted from between his lips, “I can't say I'm struck to my core.”  
 

God, he wanted to drop-kick him in his weirdly pleasing face.  
 

Pratt narrowed his eyes, and the crackling protests his packets made as he clenched his fingers around them almost drowned out the muffled, _stupid_ growling that escaped the back of his throat.  
 

But when had 'almost' ever been enough for Jacob Seed?  
 

“Ouch, Peaches. Strike a little nerve there, huh?”  
 

The words rumbled from deep within that broad chest, tinged with rich and warm laughter. _Appreciative,_ and his stupid, treacherous, _unmedicated_ body was happily and frantically trying to tell his mind that Jacob was growling back, and that this would be a good time to _get excited, get excited, get ready, make him chase you, make him catch you, make him work for it.  
_  

“Fuck off, Jacob. Sorry we can't all be such fatasses that normal folding chairs won't take our weight.”  
 

It was a poor effort to be sure, although judging by the chortle coming from the huge red hulk across from him, it had hit a mark. Not the _intended_ mark, perhaps. Not the mark where Jacob was so through with his bullshit and outright hostility that he walked _away_ from this place – to the parking lot, the other side of the store, right back to the inner circle of hell from whence he had spawned – literally anywhere but _here,_ in Pratt's _space,_ witnessing Pratt's...witnessing _Pratt._  
  


His tongue felt thick in his mouth and his body felt like it was going to thrum straight out of his skin. It was too itchy and sticky and tight, and he wanted it _off -_ and he would be spitting some serious venom his doctor's way about not _warning_ him about the seriously disturbing thoughts and urges that being unsuppressed and heat-adjacent would bring.  
 

He was glad of his armful of shitty treats, because at least it didn't look too weird for him to be clutching his stomach like he was about to throw vomit all over the only pleasant-smelling alpha in this town.  
  


And oh fucking _shit,_ no.  
  


 _Please,_ fucking shit, no.  
 

Jacob Seed was older than Pratt. _So much_ older. Jacob Seed was a dick, Jacob Seed didn't know how to read stop signs or speed limits or red lights -  
 

 _Older. Steadier. Experienced. Strong and capable and knows just what to do and would_ fight well _and provide -  
_  

Pratt almost sneezed like a goddamn dog as he shook his head, trying to dislodge the thoughts that hissed through his mind like a single-minded, dull-eyed reptile had taken up residence there. Spewing any shit that would get him the one thing he wanted, and good fucking hellchrist, these thoughts weren't _his own,_ what the hell was happening to Pratt The Man?  
 

He was being swallowed whole by Pratt The Omega, who now that he could see him clearly, was what Pratt had always feared him to be – a withered and starved thing, reaching with wasted, clammy hands, grasping for the first warm and virile alpha that it could lay its needy fingers on.  
  
  
Jerking violently like someone had yanked him from smothering, heavy water when he felt a cool, firm grip on his arm and softened rumbling in his ear.    
 

“Alright, Pratt. It's all good, you're not losing your shit. Take a breath – _that way.”_ Another large and blessedly cool hand on the side of his face, practically smothering one whole side of it, firmly turning it away from the _sweatwarmearth_ scent and towards the open door of the gas station.  
  


Towards a small and sluggish trickle of fresh air.  
 

The reptile words inside his head quieted a little. He felt confident in taking another, slightly deeper breath.  
 

He wasn't sure how time was passing, or even if it was, but it was all he could do for a moment to breathe and feel the relief of being able to do so without the heavy and piercing urge to rip and tear at Jacob, at himself. To goad and hurt and push and pull until the man felt compelled to grab Pratt; to seal his larger hands around his arms and his hair, to put him to the ground and to educate him, to _show_ him just who was going to be coming out of this the winner.  
  


He was vaguely aware that he moaned and was more than vaguely aware of how terrible it sounded.  
 

Distressed and helpless and still fucking _wanting._  But worse this time, because although he was no longer staggered by the weight of his Other and its hissing, wriggling voice, he can hear the words for what they are.  
  


Familiar. Not alien as his violent, lashing gut impulse had made out. He had shoved it away with rigid fingers and shaking hands because he recognised a glinting thread of truth running through those words, those sickly sweet desires.  
 

They didn't just belong to omega Pratt. He had felt them before, rolled their shapes around his mouth and felt their jumps and heavy, skittering footsteps dog his pulse before. In a few clammy and shuddering and entirely ill-advised moments of abandon.  
 

For a few years, he had thought it strange that the suppressants hadn't stopped them. Until he realised that they had nothing to do with being an omega, and everything to do with being Staci Pratt.  
 

He had tried, with a few alphas from college and one he had gone to high-school with. Stupid and drunk on his new-found sexual liberation, he had thought that perhaps these alphas – big, strong, loud and all tipping very definitely over the edge of arrogance, would enjoy sharing in his desire to play house with his own dynamic.  
  


The disappointment got tiring very quickly, and he had quietly resolved himself to having learnt his lesson.  
  


Straight men want to come and then go, and alphas never really did settle for _playing_ at anything. They had no interest in winning what Pratt enjoyed making them earn.  
  


 _I don't want this because I'm an omega. I want this because I'm Staci fucking Pratt.  
_  

The words had felt old in his throat before too very many tries.  
 

“Pratt.”  
 

He flinched away from Jacob's voice, though it was low and quiet, and frankly Pratt hadn't even thought Jacob physically capable of making those sounds.  
 

“Yeah?”  
 

Scratchy and raw, and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to be at home and in the dark.  
 

“Calm it down, huh? No need to go throwing your scent all over the place. I know you're here, princess. Just cool it, before Hurk's daddy has himself a fourth heart attack.”  
 

Jacob wasn't standing too terribly close to him, but he had one heavy, scar-pinked arm braced against the wall in front of Pratt, and it made him feel surrounded. Warm in the suddenly stinging, frigid air.   
He was grateful for it as he hunched his shoulders, turning his head to see the stiff postures and pointed lack of stares from the other customers who had just come for gas and ended up with stale sandwiches and a show.  
 

He jerked his head quickly away from them all, coming inexplicably back to stare dumbly up at Jacob with a reflexiveness that made him want to spit in the general direction of every other alpha in the building.  
 

 _Need an alpha to kiss it better you little crybaby?  
_  

“No.” Pratt could hear the eyeroll in the flat and unimpressed rumble, and it warmed his cold and clammy skin just a little. “Don't start with your bullshit – don't need to let every alpha here know what you think of them. Sure they've all heard it from you often enough, don't need to smell it, too.”  
 

His lip curled, only this time it was as close as he could get to a smile, no matter how hard he wished he could summon his usual snarl that he reserved specially for Jacob.  
 

“Pratt.” He looked up into eyes that shone unnaturally blue in the harsh tube lighting. Despite the glare, they were steady and calm, and their usual knife-edge glint of shitty humour was safely packed away somewhere deeper.  
 

“Got your wallet?”  
 

Jerkily, as though the movements were all new to him, Pratt felt in his back pocket, Nodded.  
 

“Good. Least you didn't fuck that part up – _joking_ , princess. Jesus.”  
 

Pratt's mulish, jutting jaw didn't prevent him from sucking in a large, 'fuck you' breath, which he was absolutely unafraid to use.  
 

Because seriously.  
 

Fuck Jacob Seed.  
 

“Yeah, yeah. I know. I'm a dipshit douchebag who should go stir my cauldron somewhere else. But for once in your goddamn life, listen to me.”  
 

Pratt kept his spite-breath held, eyeing Jacob narrowly. He would do it, and pat of him wanted Jacob to test him.  
 

“Go to the counter. Pay for your packets of diabetes. And while you're over there, grab the chicken mayo sandwich. It's the only one that doesn't taste like disappointment, and growing deputies can't survive on E-numbers alone.”  
 

Jacob held up both his warm, dry hands.  
 

“Tell me I'm a human landfill later, Peaches. Go pay for your shit. Don't walk home. I'll be outside.”  
 

His 'fuck you' breath deflates from his aching lungs, and he's left standing there, listening to Jacob's raspy muttering power him out the door and into the parking lot.  
 

Someone's shoe squeaked loudly on the linoleum floor, and it jarred the remaining fuzziness from his eyes and ears. He almost wished for it back again as he hurried to the counter to pay for his diabetes (even Jacob Seed couldn't be wrong all the time).  
  


As he hastily threw the chicken mayo onto the heap crinkling to a rest on the counter, he felt strangely cold and wet underneath all the furtive eyes resting on him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jacob leaning up against his truck in the parking lot, unlit cigarette propped behind one puffy, scarred ear.  
  


His fingers uncurled a little around the bills stuffed in his hand.  
 

_Fucking shit._


	2. Chapter 2

Time seems to slip and slide very slowly, elusive in Pratt's hands like the change that tinkles through his uncooperative, tingling fingers.  


His candy seems frivolous and stupid now, and he stares dumbly at them after sweeping them into the crinkled paper bag that smells like pennies and gasoline.

  
The soft hum of the pumps outside runs heavy through his mind, making it difficult to remember why he had left his dark house full of soft things to come here and be bathed in unforgiving blue light.  


Warm under the mostly-forgiving eyes but very vivid memories of everyone stopping in for a late-night pack of cigarettes.  


He opens his mouth to suck in some bitter gas-station air, because he is very aware that freaking out about it all is only going to further stink-out a place of business that didn't ask for his gross, out-of-control thirst pheromones.  


“Deputy Pratt?”  


The words are like the first big dip in a rollercoaster, and he can feel his face working overtime not to crumple under the weight of humiliation when he sees the cashier's face smooth out in practiced nonchalance.  


_Deputy Pratt_ feels like he's standing a thousand years adjacent to now, rooted to this very spot and looking on in absolute despair.  


For the first time since this whole thing started, he finds himself wishing that _Deputy Pratt_ would go away and leave gross, uncontrolled _omega Pratt_ to be gross and uncontrolled and without the burden of shame.  


“Your change.”  


Pratt stares at the shiny, clinking handful that he is somehow being expected to deal with.  


The sound of voices outside buzzes in a slightly lower key than the flickering lights, and when he finally has shaky, sweaty possession of the coins, he feels a strong desire to hurl them violently at the source.  


 

Each step closer to the door seems to drag a little more of the sweltering, fog-eyed frenzy away. He feels the night air seep through the frayed material of his sneakers, and it seems to allow sense and Deputy Pratt to gain a few more footholds on the smooth linoleum.

 

His knees still feel as though they're unsure they're up to the task as he finally breaks from the artificial blue bubble and into the loud, dark air outside.  


Loud, because Jacob Seed has somehow managed to get into a fight in what Pratt hopes is the five minutes since he has been staring, entranced by stinking and misshapen quarters.  


Although in the seconds that it takes Pratt to slough off as much of the omega's skin as possible, to make room for the Deputy once again, he notices that Jacob's customary growl is...an undercurrent.  


His voice is rumbling across the damp air, deep, calm and even.  


It brushes against something inside of Pratt that is only one-part surprise, and two parts...adjacent to other things that Deputy Pratt must not become familiar with.  


An alpha that Pratt vaguely recognises from Eli Palmer's crew is growling, words cracking through the air at a volume that hurts Pratt's ears, standing close enough to Jacob that he feels a little unease creep through him.  


The man's feet are planted at a distance that would only be acceptable if he were bonded to Jacob, his face leering even closer, arms corded and stiff as they slice through the air close enough to ruffle the longer hair on top of Jacob's head.  


Pratt picks up his pace a little, heart beginning to pound because he can _smell_ the anger, the pent-up need for _movement_ that is thrumming from Jacob's skin.  
  
Can taste the bitter, acrid scent of the other man's rage, rattling through the air like too many empty cans. They clank against his raw, recently stripped and exposed senses. His palms are damp around his bag, and he can feel some of his candy disintegrating underneath his fingers.  


“You're not untouchable, Jacob.” The words are slurred and clog Pratt's airways as he opens his mouth to interject.  


“Thinkin' you can just blow through town stealin' from good people, you in-bred, burnt-up _fuck.”_  
  


Something low down in Pratt's belly lurches and falls, and he tries to swallow it down when it fights to come rumbling back up through his tight, parched throat.  


“Go home, Wade.” Jacob's voice lilted low and calm through his small, sharp grin. “Whatever you think you're gonna accomplish here, it ain't gonna work out the way you think.”  


Wade's jaw clenched as Pratt circled around the broad, tense line of Jacob's back.  


Slowly, more slowly than his jumping, singing muscles would really like. Arcing wide around the two men currently blind and deaf to anything outside their snapping and punching radius.  


Forcing himself to keep his pace as well as his distance, no matter how much something small and shrivelled inside of him is insisting that he should rip his way through the cloying, rotten-fruit scent that shimmers in the air like a sickness.  


Wouldn't be his best move to startle two alphas squaring up to each other.  


“Everything okay, Jacob?”

 

Through a gauzy haze, he remembers that they taught all new police officers that it was always better to approach a potential victim directly, rather than immediately confront an antagonist.  


Stuffs his hysterical laughter mostly back down his throat as he wonders if that's what he's doing here with Jacob.  


Jacob, who seems to not only be doing fine by himself, but also perhaps seeing straight through Pratt's dampened blush and tightly sealed lips, because the slant of the single eyebrow tilted Pratt's way is devastating.  


Pratt growls and isn't sure who he most wants it to be directed at.  


“Deputy,” Jacob drawls, with a crooked smile that, if the world had any justice whatsoever, should have made all those scars twist the wrong way.  


“Nah. All good here. Wade's just tryna work with what the good lord saw fit to bless him with. Can't rush these things.”  


Pratt fights to keep his eyes from falling shut in fundamental denial.  


The spit that flies from the edges of Wade's jagged, bottle-shard words hits the ground in front of his feet and sizzles there in time with Pratt's temper.  


“I'm gonna show you what the good lord gave me, Seed.” Wade takes one step closer, which with his considerable leg span means that he's closer to both of them than Pratt is entirely comfortable with.  


Pratt slides one foot back but doesn't actually make the move to retreat. He glares up at Jacob, trying to keep his own rage-spit in check.  


“If you don't shut up, I'm going to arrest you myself.” Jacob's eyes are gleaming with the crackle and spark of Pratt's hissed words. Tongue planted in cheek and watching him with that small but no less shit-eating grin.  


Pratt's upper lip trembles in the futile attempt at a snarl, before giving Jacob Seed up as a lost cause.  


“Wade?” He's tired and his voice is loud and frayed with it. “You go on home now.”  


And perhaps it makes him an asshole, but he allows a gentle ribbon of _calm, settle,_ to unfurl with a flutter of _appeasement._  
  


If he's not going to get a knot and some good heat-sex out of this whole debacle, he might as well get _something_ out of it. Even if that something _is_ only postponing a fight from one night to the next, and avoiding the sticky issue of having to arrest the guy who's driving him home.  


There's also no point in denying that he enjoys the ego boost of the foggy, loose-lip expressions he is suddenly able to garner.  


Wade's eyes cut to him, narrowed and dull behind the knife-edge glinting. Sluggishly considering, muddy rainwater sloshing down glass. Pratt tries to breathe through his mouth without letting it gape.  


Tries too, to ignore the heavier, warmer feel of Jacob's eyes also considering him, although it feels like the left side of his face is trying to burst into flame in some sort of twisted sympathy with Jacob's own scars.  


“Wade, Jacob may be an asshole, but he's right.” Softening his voice, retrieving his foot from its cautious spot behind him, almost flinching and toppling the whole thing when Jacob's bulk shifts once, restlessly.  


“Look around. It's late, you're drunk. Nothing about this stacks up well for you. Go home.”  


And for a moment, Wade's eyes do look – they're more glazed than the stale doughnuts Pratt had spent five minutes debating over through the gas station sneeze guard, but they do move. Reluctantly, their restlessness doing nothing to detract from the notch to his lips.  


They drag themselves heavily from Pratt, to the gas station full of eyes already shiny and eager for entertainment this evening, to the clear darkness of the night sky above.  


Back to Jacob, before something heavy and stupid slams from the murky waters to the surface of his gaze, hooking his lips even further up above his gleaming teeth.  
 

Pratt tries to clamp down on the rapid surging of his heartbeat, on the sudden and reflexive deluge of his scent that assaults even his nose, becausetwo alphas throwing down is not something he had fortified himself for tonight.  


A rich, warm smell curls into the air, settling over Pratt's skin like heat from a cloudless sky. Making him feel slightly less taught and ill-fitting in his own body.  


Flicks a glance towards Jacob, who gives nothing away, staring steadily at Wade, arms loose by his sides in a way that makes Pratt's hackles rise.  


“Jacob.”  


The words are soft, entirely channelled towards the blinkered, dark pupils that threaten to swallow the shocking blue of Jacob's eyes. Wade designated to lost cause status – if he was going to loosen any part of this knot, Jacob was the thread he would need to pick at.  


“C'mon. Don't do this to me."  


Wade's eyes are sharp and crackling with the excitement that potential brings. Pratt ignores them, steps closer to Jacob, allowing his feet to fall heavily on the tarmac, once.

  
Nobody ever needs to know that it's as close to stamping his foot as he'll allow himself to get.  


Nobody except Jacob, who already seems to very much know, if the smallest tilting of his head is anything to go by.  


Like a dog pricking up its ears.  


Still doesn't touch the eyes, though, and that's what holds Pratt like a frayed rope over a chasm. Dark and far too still.  


Don't have to bare your teeth when your eyes blaze frozen hellfire.  


“ _Jacob._ Come _on,_ I need a goddamn ride.” Forcing his tongue to curl around the words as it normally would, not to lend any additional weight that might drag them both down to the murky depths of guilt.  


It would have been useless, dead weight anyway. Jacob is struggling to keep his aggression alive as his head tilts further in Pratt's direction. The broken eye contact with Wade seeming to slacken the thin, taught thread between them, threatening to twang back and cut them all.  


Still connected, though. Still dangling there, thin and sharp and trembling with the weight of Jacob's indecision.  


“Jesus, Jacob. You wanna get Rookie called out to give you a complimentary ride to the station with Wade here for company,” he jerked his thumb and a glare back at Wade, whose face flickered with dulled hostility, reluctantly ashamed, “be my guest. Both of you can piss and growl at each other in a concrete cube for the entire weekend for all I care. Just don't do it in my hearing on my _sacred night off_ , and don't do it when you're my _ride,_ dumbass.”  


He turns his back on both of them, can't help but be grieved that he doesn't really have anywhere to stomp off to, other than the country road that leads to his home, which would be...not nearly as dramatic as he requires.  


The silence that swirls thick and heavy around his body as he twists it away from the two alphas. The musk of aggression rolling over it all like oil on troubled water.  


Bubbling and roiling in response to the _agitation_ and exhaustion that he knows he is exuding.  


Didn't make any real attempt to stop it. Doesn't know Wade – _don't even know Jacob, you stupid, horny dipshit –_ but hopes that Jacob's recent and unexpected... _sensitivity_ to his situation will engender him to the silent distress that he lets unfurl through the air.  


Sure, he doesn't _like_ himself for it – but it's not the first time, and he will defend with his last dying, rabid breath his right to use something that has only ever caused him grief and trouble to finally claw back a handhold.  


Mutters something about alphas who are more knot that brain, he turns and tries to stomp with the smallest steps possible to hide the fact that he's kind of waiting on Jacob to provide him with somewhere to stomp _to._  
  


The chuckle that bounces through the air is becoming tooth-achingly familiar, and it tangles like tiny burrs tugging teasingly his hair.  


Scratchy, raspy. Annoying. But he doesn't quite want to pick it out, and the keenness of his relief is surprising. His legs ache like he's been standing and pacing all day, searching for something that he doesn't know the shape of. Calling for something even though he wouldn't even recognise the song.  


He hears the heavy thud of footsteps behind him, trotting quickly at first and then slowing unevenly to an easy lope as he feels the looming heat at his back.  


“You keep that up, you'll waddle home on your own two feet and then that whole tantrum would be kind of moot.”  


Pratt slams his heels down into the damp tarmac.  


The sense of satisfaction settling deep inside him as Jacob's warm, solid mass almost collides with his back with a whooshing ' _oof'_ sound.  


He rocks back a little on his heels, humming innocently as he makes a show of rootling through his bag of treats, taking leisurely inventory just in case he had been remiss in at least one of his choices tonight.  


“Jesus,” exasperation ruffling the hairs at the back of his neck as Jacob steps carefully around him, one arm trailing to rest in the air just above the small of his back as he propels them both steadily onward.  


Pratt smiles sweetly up at the craggy face above him, happily allowing himself to be propelled forward.  


The only warning that anything was remiss was a sudden heaviness in the air, zipping across the hairs on Pratt's arms, making his skin tingle like he had suddenly grabbed hold of a bare wire.  


It clogged his nose and he almost dropped his bag in his urgency to scrub at it, to rub the thick, itchy swell of hostility that suddenly crashes over him.  


“That how it is, Seed? Gonna walk away?”  


Wade's voice is dripping with something that makes Pratt's throat want to reflexively tighten and close up. The bitter, acrid heat is overwhelming, and his feet stutter to a stop without his permission.  


He feels like he's choking, and he feels a panic so genuine that it shocks him. His chest is moving up and down, but this fact means nothing to him.  


Anger sours the soft, urgent scent that he is left utterly helpless to prevent from throwing blindly in all directions. It's like trying to blanket a fire by throwing buckets of water at everywhere the sun touches.  


Wade throws dirty, sullied water back at him, and it feels like his lip is being pulled away from his itching teeth by a fishing hook. The choking in his throat tumble from between his canines, twisting into a growl.  


A terrifyingly small part of his brain is howling that he is a _man of the fucking law,_ not an animal that only knows how to roll over or piss at everything in sight.  


Jacob shuffles and rumbles beside him like rock formations shifting.  


“What're you thinkin', Seed? You gonna come over here, huh?” Wade's smile is deep and dark, like a gouge in his face. He sniffs loudly, dragging the air roughly into his nostrils while his eyes remain huge and black, locked with Jacob's as his body leers towards Pratt.  


“Nah, I don't think so. I think you're gonna follow the trail of slick.” Wade's tongue flickers out of his mouth obscenely, and the rush of shame Pratt feels almost obliterates his indignation at feeling it.  


“Think you're gonna go panting after your little bitch like you ain't ever knotted a sloppy omega hole before.”  


The blood falls from his face, heavy and sudden and leaving him feeling like the safety rail has crumbled off the edge of a cliff.

  
His body embraced the fall, feet taking one, two, three jagged and faltering steps forward, pulled by the fish-hook of Wade's disdain and cloying arousal. The movements were empty and hollow, devoid of any intention as his unsuppressed and unfamiliar half howls at him to _act,_ to bristle and to throw his scent like quills, to _prove_ that if it was a victim people were looking for, they would need to look elsewhere.  
  
  
While the other half of him – the Staci Pratt that he had grown up with, the Staci Pratt with the dulled, stale-candy scent and the blunted sense of smell that came with raising himself as a beta - the _Deputy Staci Pratt_ that he has worked his whole life to become...  


He spits and snarls that if he wants to prove that omegas are emotional ticking timebombs that don't belong outside the home, let alone inside the police force, then he's going the right way about it.  


He wants to rage and scream and launch himself at Wade. Wants to dig his fingernails into every bit of the alpha that dares to be vulnerable.  


Instead he finds himself trying to control the lurch of his heart and his scent as Jacob is suddenly no longer at his back.  


He doesn't run to Wade. His feet consume the distance within dark, silent seconds, pounding soundlessly across the tarmac with such single-minded focus that it makes Pratt's heart kick into overdrive.  


He isn't on the receiving end of those blown pupils and that slack, focused face, but he still feels like a prey animal caught in the all the light getting swallowed and obliterated by the dark pools in Jacob's face.  


His pulse beats against the soft glands in his neck.  


Jacob's lip lifts – Jesus, it looks like half his goddamn face folds away in the sickly, flickering blue lights of the gas station – exposing sharp, long teeth as some low, gut-churning rumbling leaks out from between them.

  
The night air dampens any actual sound, which only makes the instant buckling of Wade's thrumming, bristling body more shocking.  


And, if the blank look on Wade's face is anything to go by – wiped clean and robbed of all snarling and suggestive front – 'shock' is the only word to describe it.  


It doesn't look like either of them ever expected a man of Jacob's size to move as quickly and easily as he did. What had started as a hurried, half-step retreat for Wade had quickly become a frantic attempt to clear the area.  


Had ended with him in the most vulnerable position Pratt could imagine, and he can practically smell Jacob's excitement. Tries to pinch it out where it leaks into his own bloodstream, alien and horrifying little sparks of light tripping along his veins and setting his skin alight.  


Pratt tries to call Jacob's name, has to choke around where it gets stuck in his constricting throat.  


Speed is all well and good, but on a man like Jacob, when the tail end of that particular sting is a hand-span the size of a small boulder, and with the sheer force that sits coiled behind Jacob's arm...  


Something heavy and fading starts to sink in his stomach, and it feels like everything that hasn't happened yet. Falling and shattering before he could even really make out its shape.  


Something that looks like one of Jacob's fists clenched around Wade's neck with whitened, blood-drained fingertips.  


Something that looks an awful lot like Pratt having to arrest Jacob before – _Jesus, god, it had better be before –_ he killed an alpha with more knot than brains, effectively tearing this whole thing down before it was even a Thing.  


“Jacob!”  


Jacob doesn't even turn his head to acknowledge Pratt as he makes his way to his side – slowly, forcing his feet to obey and not to sprint towards someone as on-edge and stinking of aggression and tension as Jacob is.  


Sees the steely, unmoving set to Jacob's eyes and jaw, sees his hands, fingers curled into claw-like things, ready to dig into warm, living flesh.  


Ready to tear into Wade, and the flimsy thing fluttering in between them like a breeze.  


Never trust an alpha with something not quite there and easily broken.  


“Jacob.” Calm and soft as he can manage, almost proud of how low he has managed to squash the tremors that live in the back of his throat. “Please. Let's just go. I wanna go.”  


Nothing. Not to the strange, zesty twist that always soaks through his pleading tone, not to his canted head, not to the _calm, please, settle, no_ that he's pushing Jacob's way,  


Despite the small crowd clotting in the gas station doorway and the sluggish pattern of cars passing on the road, he feels suddenly stiff and stuck and alone, standing here with empty hands and a head that's even emptier of ideas of how to fucking _stop this_ shit-show.  


He runs a shaking hand through his hair, takes one faltering step forward. Takes it back again.  


Swallowing around the indecision, before shoving it down along with the tremors, dragging up all his rage and pent-up frustration instead, forcing himself to think of everything that's ever made him so angry he couldn't speak, and then spitting it back out in Jacob's face.  


“Swear to fucking Christ, Jacob, if you do this, I will arrest your ass and throw you in the bed of your own fucking truck and drive you to the station _myself_ , and you'll have nobody to blame for fucking everything up but _yourself._ ”  


The words that aren't spoken hanging heavy in the air, waterlogged spiderwebs threatening to break under the weight and soak them both.  


The warning drips apparently just cold enough to break through Jacob's stupor.  


Raising his head slightly from where it looms dispassionately over Wade's struggles.  


Turning just enough to see Pratt's body unfolding a little, allowing some of the ramrod-straight tension to bleed out into the air, meeting Jacob's acquiescence halfway.  


“Jacob.” Allowing the panic to be swapped out with the pale tiredness that was sweeping through his body in place of the adrenaline of watching a lot of potential and 'what ifs' spiral down the plug-hole.  


Pushing a little of it slightly harder in Jacob's direction. Feeling relief tinged with something a little warmer rush through him at the sight of scarred fingers unclenching slightly from their white-knuckle fist.  


“Please, let's just go. I need to get back, and you promised you'd give me a ride. Don't make me fucking walk home.”  


Jacob's eyes sluggishly, reluctantly beginning to drag themselves through the muddy waters of Wade's stare, tentatively breaking the stalemate to fleetingly meet Pratt's gaze.  


Pratt swallows a small breath, takes the chance of this tower toppling the wrong way, and reaches out, lays a hand on the crook of Jacob's arm.  


It's startlingly warm, the skin rough and ruckled but firm, and it makes his heartbeat kick up into an overdrive that Jacob surely hears. Hopefully Wade is too concerned with his precarious position to pay too much attention to the frantic, whirring moving parts of Pratt's body.  


Having mostly stolen Jacob's attention from Wade, Pratt lets his body slide between them, his other hand moving to Jacob's chest to pat firmly, reassuringly. Hoping that Jacob doesn't notice the trembling running through his fingers in response to the deep rumbling that reverberates loosely through his chest at Pratt's touch.  


“Kay, we're all good now, Jacob. Let's go, big fella.”  


Allows a shaky, drained laugh to drift from his lips on a breath of pure relief when Jacob grunts and turns, allowing the very slight pressure Pratt exerts on his chest to turn them both around in the direction of Jacob's truck.  


He eases up a little after Wade's disappeared from view, allowing Jacob to choose their pace, not wanting to push too hard in case he smashes this delicate balance. Looking up at an obnoxious angle from his place so close by Jacob's side, trying to guage whether their slow gait was anything to worry about.  


Jacob doesn't look back down at him, but he grunts again as if coming to a decision, throwing a heavy arm around Pratt, staggering him a little which doesn't seem to register, and driving them both forward towards the relative haven of his vehicle.  


Pratt allows himself to be herded, content beneath the weight of Jacob's arm slung around him, ostensibly to ground him, but he can feel the way the excess tension makes Jacob's muscles tense and twitch around his shoulders. Can feel also the hard, rigid line of his torso relaxing slightly, unclenching and hackles lowering where Pratt's own smaller form slots in next to him.  


He's warm and huge, and that new, alien part of Pratt wriggles contently inside of him, and even the older and much more familiar part of him is fighting off warm cheeks at being so close to Jacob that he can smell all the natural undertones to the man's scent.  


Can smell the sweat and the aftershave sparring pleasingly with each other across his skin, the faint traces of coffee on his breath, of earth on his hands and clothes.  


“Christ.” Jacob huffs, breaking his parade rest stare to glance ruefully down at Pratt.  


“What?” Graceless and abrasive, because Jacob is looking at him like he can't decide whether to be irritated or amused, and Pratt's done with all that indecipherable alpha handbook crap today, he just wants to go home and eat his weight in sugar.  


“Fucking what, asshole?”  


There's that sound again; a little amused, consternated chuff of air, unlike anything else he has ever heard in his long and glorious career of breaking up gas station and parking lot fist-fights.  


“You gotta settle your scent glands down from whatever party they've been havin' for the past twenty minutes, Pratt.” His cheeks burn, and Jacob cuts him off before he can even unclench his teeth, voice softening a little as he dips his head closer, keeps his words from carrying.  


“I see you, Peaches. M'right here. Chose you over giving Wade what he had coming to him. It's all over now and nobody's dead or dying, so you don't need to keep trying to bash everyone over the head with that shit.”  


Pratt dips his head, not wanting Jacob to see the frustration in his face, though he surely knew already, if the way he graciously looks away is anything to go by.  


There's a muted crinkling and a slight dipping of the weight over his shoulders as Jacob bends a little to scoop Pratt's discarded bag of crappy candy from the floor.  


He keeps it clenched easily in his free hand, the one furthest away from Pratt, who scowls.  


“I know, princess, you can carry your own bag. But I got it now, you might as well let me keep it.”  


Pratt's scowl deepens.  


“Just...just let me do this. Please.”  


And that....that feels better. More natural. More like something slotting into place and snuggling against some rougher edges inside of him, and he nods silently, relaxing into the arm that tightens around him a little.  


Jacob's keys jingle as he hooks them out of his pocket, situates Pratt's bag in the back seat and turns to open the passenger side door for him, which doesn't snag on any loose and itchy threads inside him as he expected.  


He hauls himself into the cab, turning to buckle himself in only to find Jacob still standing there by the open door, eyeing him calmly.  


“You okay?”  


A simple question, quiet and low and honest in all its implications and expectations, and Pratt finds himself untroubled by answering in kind.  


“Yeah. I'm just...kinda tired. You alright to take me home?”  


Jacob's lips quirk in a small expression so alien to his gaping, snarling display of a few moments ago that Pratt feels the last few sparks of tension sputter out and smoulder off his skin.

  
“Uh huh, reckon I can manage that. Don't touch that goddamn radio, though. Not even those eyes are gonna do you any favours there..”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

The radio is surprisingly quiet and not surprisingly country.

 

Jacob heaves himself into the truck, the whole thing rocking like a boat on unsteady seas, and spends a short but intense moment selecting something inoffensive.

 

Pratt doesn't know the tune, but it bubbles over his skin, bright and relatively upbeat without making his skin feel tight.

 

He almost thanks Jacob, before remembering that the giant oaf is part of the reason why he's so keyed up, and decides that turning to face out of the window to watch the gas station disappear behind them would be a better idea.

 

They drive in the comparative silence of the radio for a while, and Pratt almost thinks that they might just be able to make it home-free. There are so many words and sounds and _consequences_ trailing behind everything that just happened, and even though they're supposed to be leaving all that shit behind them along with the miraculously unharmed Wade, Pratt's pretty sure he can see them in the side mirrors, latching their claws into the tailgate of Jacob's truck and dragging their way up and over.

 

Jacob clears his throat, rough and awkward, and Pratt closes his eyes at the same moment as he reflexively opens his mouth.

 

“You shouldn't have done that.”

 

Opening his eyes to underline his sentiment by glaring at Jacob, and the man doesn't even have the gall to look surprised.

 

“Shouldn't have goaded him like that. Was fucking stupid thing to do.”

 

_'You're stupid. You smell. You've got Alpha cooties.'_

 

Jacob, for his part, smirks as he guides the steering wheel with barely the tips of his fingers, elbow propped up against the open window frame.

 

“Drive _properly,”_ Pratt hisses, because let it never be said that he was a man capable of letting things go. “You might not care whether you live or die, but _I'm_ precious fucking cargo, Seed.”

 

“'Seed', Deputy Pratt? We really back to all that now?” Jacob tuts through his teeth, glinting white and obnoxious in the darkness.

 

On the next turn, he leans back comfortably in his seat, stretching and yawning through the manoeuvre.

 

“And don't I know it?” He snorts, turning to look out of the driver's side window like all the nocturnal wildlife they couldn't see at this speed was infinitely more interesting than Pratt.

 

Pratt, who grudgingly and against his better judgement, grunts out a questioning noise to Jacob's seeming non sequitur.

 

His teeth ache from where they've been grinding all night at the sound of Jacob's musing humming.

 

“You are cargo.” He flicks a glance at Pratt, clutching his bag of candy to his chest in the passenger seat and glaring back. “And you are most certainly precious.”  
  
Unwilling to give Jacob the satisfaction of squawking and flailing, Pratt instead turns carefully away from his quiet chortling and curls himself towards his window until his seatbelt won't let him go any further.

 

Jacob chuffs, and it takes an almost painful effort to coral his limbs into folding neatly away from him rather than flipping him off and/or jabbing at his ribs and vulnerable spots.

 

“Nah, there's no need to be that way. I'm done fuckin' with you, I promise.”

 

_'Haven't even started fucking with me. Writing cheques you can't cash.'_

 

Tamps down on the thought so fucking quickly that he slices almost clean through his tongue doing it. Makes a small sound and pretends to himself that it's all pain.

 

Pretends that Jacob isn't staring at him so fucking intently that his face burns even under the gentle starlight, until he can't.

 

“Keep your eyes on the _road,_ Jacob _, God.”_

 

“Don't you worry, Peaches. I'll get us there in one piece. Precious cargo, right?”

 

God, it's a special kind of infuriating that he's never felt before, and is convinced that he never will again. Like still-burning embers just under his skin, smouldering gently and itching, grating. Never actually graduating to outright pain, but good Christ, some days he thinks this is worse.

 

He's never met anyone as goddamnn confident, as utterly at ease in his own skin and with his own skillset as Jacob fucking Seed.

 

It practically seeps through his pores, settles in the marrow of his bones and the sinews of his muscles, holding them easy and relaxed. Powerful and at rest, like a big cat, a fucking predator in recline, and once again Pratt feels a stinging heat opening its maw to swallow him whole. Peel his skin back, layer by layer until he's nothing but this emaciated, wailing, screeching _Thing_ that wants nothing more than to swallow and be devoured.

 

Although the sound that slips from his mouth is soft, the product of the turmoil and _need_ that lives at the back of his throat, it still startles him. Didn't think he could _get_ more uncomfortable, but the addition of the heat of embarrassment on the sweltering, cloying burning that already swaddles him is nearly too much.

 

“I need to pull over, Pratt?”

 

The question is low and lacking in any kind of undertone, and hisses against staci's skin like oil on hot sand.

 

“ _No,_ god. Just – just get me home, please.”

 

Can't even face Jacob, has to breathe through his mouth, because even the thought that 'stopping the car' might mean something else, might mean something that would cool and sate the burning spreading over his skin, threatening to burn his husk of a body to set that wailing, sharp-toothed _Thing_ out – it's almost too much for him to stand.

 

“Alright. We'll get you home. Turn your head out the window and breathe slow and deep.”

 

It turns out that Jacob isn't entirely full of shit, because poking his head out of the window – too far, moving too fast, the outside world an inconsequential blur – goes some way to making him feel like he's not going to die from sun-stroke in the middle of the night.

 

He's vaguely aware that Jacob is talking to him – soft, low, and inoffensive chatter about whoever and whatever they happen to pass - “Jesus, that fuckin' Cheeseburger tower is at least ten times more disturbin' at night.” - and Pratt desperately wants to tell him to shut the fuck up.

 

It's a sweet gesture. Would be sweet, if not for the fact that even such mundane and benign words didn't pour into his ear like woodsy, dark amber whisky.

 

The kind that Pratt can sometimes smell swirling gently around Jacob's person when Pratt's called to the Spread Eagle.

 

If the words didn't stroke softly around the whorls of his ear, seep into his brain to cavort and twist themselves into new syllables, different sounds.

 

Growling, low and laughing, for Pratt's ears only. Intimate and wanting, occupying the warm, small space between two bodies that have forgotten that there are other places and other people.

 

Opens his mouth to tell Jacob, to _beg him_ to please, please stop, except the words that start to form make his heart squeeze and his stomach drop, because they're wrong, they're not what he wanted.

 

“Please, Jacob. God, please just -”

 

He hears the pleading, the words that are almost completely shredded by the time they escape his throat – hears the desperation and the _pain._ Knows he's got that bit down perfectly.

 

The only slight kicker – and it feels like it _has_ kicked him, right between the goddamn eyes and repeatedly, low in his belly – is that the sounds are beginning to curl into dreaded, unintended shapes. Wrong, a mockery and a broken reflection of what he had meant to say - everything that his whole _being_ is screaming at him that he _needs_ to say.

 

Instead, he grips the panic handle on his door with both hands and heaves himself out of the window. He wants nothing more than to gulp down the sparkling, black air and hope that it washes down his throat, dousing all the burning, starving cells beneath his skin.

 

Except he's gulping and gasping like a drowning man trying to swallow the ocean before it reaches his lungs, and it's still not _enough_ \- heaves his body out of the window to chase clarity. To chase Deputy Pratt, to bring him kicking and screaming back into his omega's gaping maw and hope that he can use it to satisfy the wild, disgusting hunger raging inside him.

 

Use Deputy Pratt as a poor substitute for the alpha sitting beside him. Trick the reaching, panting animal inside of him into thinking that his Civlised and Decent self is in fact an acceptable alternative.

 

Hoping that the short ride home is enough time for the Creature inside him to chew and taste and mull with narrowed eyes and dripping teeth.

 

Enough time to push Jacob Seed away from him, tell him not to get near him, not to look at him. To leave Well Enough alone. To warn him before the Creature realises what has happened and spits him out.

 

God, his body is so heavy, it's like a tide is pulling him back down, further into the car and towards that fucking _scent_ that won't let him _go._ He struggles with the handle, striving to get further, further, further into the air -

 

Pressure at his back, a warm, soft brand curling around his hip and pulling him back down into the maw.

 

“Get _off me,”_ hissed around teeth that feel too long and sharp, itching at his gums, “not gonna fall out and break my neck. Know you think I'm too stupid to live, but give me a little credit.”  
  
A snort at his back, and he doesn't even have the chance to turn around before Jacob has managed to manhandle him back into his seat using only one hand, the other resting nonchalantly in a loose, three-fingered hold on the bottom of the steering wheel.

 

Still managing to smoothly guide the truck around the familiar, single-track roads leading out to Pratt's house. Still managing to evade all the small, prey-eyed animals flitting into the road with their dread-green eyes, and with none of the sharp, panicked jerking that Pratt always employs this late at night.

 

“Lord, let it never be said that I think that you're stupid.”

 

Jacob's laughing – and it's an honest-to-god laugh, not just another vaguely amused exhalation of air or infuriating snort.

 

His head tips back with the gentle momentum of the soft rumbling, letting the sound drift up and free from his curling lips and filling the car with rich, smooth warmth.

 

The scarred, sun-burnt skin of his throat moves smoothly up and down in time with the low, gut-punching sound and Pratt feels his brow relax, his body unwind from its previous attempts at freedom.

 

Jacob turns to side-eye him, laughter lingering in the corners of his mouth and eyes sparkling in the low light.

 

Calm and even, something Pratt has always appreciated about them, even in the eye of the many liquor-rain storms that have often been raging around them whenever they are united in town.

 

Focused, although there is something else there now, pacing and rumbling behind all the control and discipline.

 

They glow, but not like all the fear-blind, frozen animals that he has been deftly avoiding tonight.

 

Not prey eyes.

 

“You're a fuckin' brat, Deputy Pratt. This I know.” Smirking dark and warm across at him, and he feels his lip curl around his still-too-sharp teeth in response.

 

“But you ain't stupid.”

 

The words hiss and spit on contact with his burning skin, and beyond the low hissing that seeps from between his tightly clenched teeth, Pratt has no response that he can allow to escape the rigid – _welcoming, simpering, weakening -_ confines of his body.

 

Ignores the satisfied quality to the silence crackling from Jacob's side of the cab, Pratt pulls his obnoxiously crinkling back and shroud of hostility tighter to himself, glaring at all the familiar potholes that litter the approach to his driveway.

 

 

Jacob pulls them smoothly around right up to Pratt's front door, and before Pratt even has enough wits about himself to fuss with his seatbelt, Jacob is swinging his bulk easily down from the truck and crossing to Pratt's side to open the door for him.

 

Brushing aside the calloused hand that Jacob extends to help him down, Pratt blows a soft raspberry sound at the gesture.

 

A snort is the only response he gets from Jaocb, low and tickling close to his ear. And he hopes to all the circles of hell that it's because of the churlishness of his reaction, rather than the way his eyes do _not_ stare at the light and almost delicate dusting of hair across large, solid forearms.

 

Unfazed, Jacob shuts the door behind Pratt, who doesn't move from his spot, taking a small step back as soon as his door clicks shut. His neck is starting to ache just as much as the rest of his roiling, restless body, from staring – just _staring_ like he's never seen or smelt an alpha before – all the way _up_ at Jacob.

 

And Pratt knows that if he were to examine a measuring tape, the inches wouldn't be imposing or impressive or make something in his chest drop and soar, or make his fingertips itch with the desire for claws, but –

 

Jacob, for his own part, is looking down at Pratt with a funny little smile that looks like it doesn't quite know where it belongs on his face.

 

Twisted and awkward, like it's been tied in knots by some meddling, outside hands that he nevertheless has no desire to swat away. Reluctant and a hair's breadth away from the expression he wears when he rolls his eyes, except there is something far softer there, and Pratt swallows so hard that his throat aches.

 

“C'mon, princess.” Jacob waves the silence away with the arm that he removes from its place propping him up against the truck. Gestures the way to Pratt's front door.

 

His body jolts unpleasantly, feeling groggy and thickly disoriented, like the fuzzy lack of awareness after being startled from a nap. Which, coincidentally, he has been taking a lot of lately.

 

Like his body's fucking preparing for something, some Event that's been a long time coming – he can feel the build-up of excess energy riddling his body, overflowing and crackling across his skin, can smell it like ozone before a storm - and honestly it scares him sometimes.

 

His body feels like a traitor, like it's not his own. Feels like a giant, bloated snake settling down to starve itself for something big to come, and it grosses him out a little.

 

And yet it still doesn't seem to do anything towards dampening the thrill of excitement, of greedy, grasping, teeth-baring _want_ that trips down his spine whenever he sees Jacob. The simple and stupidly home-spun rush of warmth and possibilities that wriggles in his belly like first-crush butterflies at the sound of Jacob's voice.

 

Wood-burning summer nights outside in the wilderness, rich and rumbling whisky-kisses and the scent of food and laughter and _family_ and all the things Jacob looks like he could _give_ Pratt -

 

Jesus.

 

Jesus, God, where does he even _find_ these words, these thoughts? Where is he dredging them up from? What dark and dim-eyed swamp is he trailing his fingers through to drag them to the surface?

 

He hears his back full of empty prizes rip as he clenches his hands, tries to dig his nails into his palm through the paper.

 

Jacob's eyes flick downwards for just an unusually unrestrained second – don't even make it all the way down to the back before they're returning to Pratt's face like a boomerang. But he's seen, Pratt knows he's seen. Knows that Jacob does, too, and if he doesn't say or do something soon, this is going to be a painfully unfunny, circular search for plausible deniability.

 

But he can't seem to do anything other than grit his teeth, jut his jaw and _scowl_ at Jacob like this is _his_ fault – and do a very successful job of convincing himself that it's true.

 

“S'alright, Peaches. No need to bust a gut. S'your house, I ain't gonna come in and put my stink everywhere.”

 

Jacob and his fucking alpha ease with everything, looking at Pratt with shoulders slouched easily back, relaxed and unfazed. Feet planted a little less than shoulder width apart because those shoulders are fucking _broad_ and that would probably just be painful, but nevertheless still the picture of unconcerned readiness.

 

Saving the day again while Pratt stands, frozen in omega indecision. Because of course. Knowing just what to say to almost forcibly make Pratt's shoulders relax and his fingers stop flexing like an angry cat's. Because of _fucking_ course.

 

Looking at Pratt still with that wry, bemused little smile, edged with soft awkwardness that makes Pratt want to ask Jacob to just come out and say 'aw, shucks' and leave him to burn up from the inside in peace.

 

He wants to throw himself at Jacob, do something to wipe that look of unsurprised, endearingly oafish embarrassment off his face.

 

Wants to dig his hands into that stupidly precise haircut - and _god,_ that can't _possibly_ be as utilitarian as the rest of Jacob's person is painstakingly put together to be, and the thought of big, mountain-man Jacob Seed carefully maintaining this one part of himself that he can use to not hide, to _showcase_ his own attractiveness is just... _god._

It makes his eyes burn and his ribs ache with the beating of his stupid, frantic little heart.

 

He wants to throw himself at Jacob and beg him to please _stop everything._

 

Settles for chuffing at Jacob's on-the-mark reassurances and ducking underneath the arm he holds out, as if Pratt needs help getting to his own damn _house_.

 

Lets it linger where it comes to gently rest on the small of his back as he carefully picks his way to his front door.

 

Stops and shuffles for a moment once they're on his porch, and Pratt wonders whether he can get away with darting inside.

 

Doesn't know why he suddenly blurts it out like he does, like a weapon, for no other reason than he feels like picking a pointless fight.

 

“You still shouldn't have done what you did. It _was_ fucking stupid. You don't have to _defend_ me, Jacob. I'm a cop, whatever else I may be. I can take care of myself.”

 

Jacob's hand doesn't move from where it's stationed lightly on his back – just above the swell of his ass and he needs to _stop –_ and he had even _leaned in_ and dipped his head in order to better hear Pratt's mumbled, hissing words, and the sweetness of the gesture has Pratt wondering why he always has to ruin everything.

 

Jacob lets out a long-suffering sigh, rolls his eyes, and all of a sudden, Pratt is back to wanting to kick at his shins.

 

“Jesus, we back to that already?”

 

Jacob's eyes are clear and earnest and full of frustration that for some reason hooks into something snapping and eager and petty inside of Pratt.

 

Makes him want to pick at the loose thread he can see in the way that Jacob runs one hand through his hair, the way his brows pull together and eyes barely keep from rolling out of his head.

 

Makes him want to pull on it some more. See Jacob Seed unravel for him and only him.

 

“Pratt.” That smile is back again, and this time it's a little cracked, a little crazed but no less infuriatingly inviting.

 

Jacob holds his gaze, ducks his head to follow when Pratt stubbornly tries to shift his back to front and centre, away from those curious, keen blue eyes.

 

“I _know_ you can handle yourself. One of your better qualities, goes some way to making up for your atrocious fucking attitude.”

 

Immediately holds up his hands to ward off the almost-audible sound of hot metal meeting water behind Pratt's eyes, to forestall the way he almost seems to be buoyed to his tiptoes by the indignant rage that goes hissing through his body, arching his back and clenching his fists.

 

Softening his voice just a little, and Pratt fights to reject the loosening of his muscles in response.

 

“I _get_ that you can take care of yourself. I didn't do that shit because I think you can't. I just-”

 

Running his hands through his hair in frustration, Jacob tilts his head back to the sky as if hoping to find inspiration there, hand slipping down to smooth away the knots that Pratt has been assured are always a result of prolonged exposure to him.

 

Pratt tracks the bob of Jacob's Adam's apple, made obvious by the stretching of his neck. Watches his hand – fucking _huge_ _,_ but it doesn't prevent it from working the back of the thick neck with gentle, assured movements, and has to fight to swallow down all the urges that suddenly want to clog his every pore and come spilling out of his mouth.

 

Jacob lowers his head, fixes Pratt with his gaze once more. Takes a breath, furrows his brow and immediately lets it deflate again.

 

Pratt almost feels sorry for him.

 

But he can't be the fool of the first alpha that comes along and doesn't immediately smell like wet garbage.

 

“You 'just' what, Jacob? You 'just' doing exactly what Wade said? Think dumbass alphas like him are a smarter way to get what you want? 'Look at me, I'm not like other alphas?'”

 

He takes a step back from Jacob, busies himself with rummaging in his pockets for his keys so he doesn't have to see whether his barbs land, and the damage they inflict if they do.

 

“I'm not an idiot, Jacob, I know you can-can fucking smell what every other dickhead alpha in this town can.”

 

Mumbled down into his empty pockets, hoping they'll do what he can't, and stop the stream of stupid, unfounded little attacks that he hurls from his mouth. Hoping they'll absorb his bullshit so that Jacob Seed no longer has to.

 

There is a second of silence wherein Pratt tries to gather the strength to put the final nail in this coffin, before it's punctuated by a mocking jingling sound.

 

Jacob Seed – ever the combined best and worst sport – is holding Pratt's keys out at arm's length, fingers pulling, making them dance a merry, pithy little jig in front of Staci's face.

 

“Yeah, Deputy, I got a nose. I can smell what all the others can. Not gonna bother denying that. But you're putting an awful lot of stock in yourself there, Peaches. You smell good, but not that good.”

 

He speaks calmly, slowly, and this time the smile is gone from his face. There is a certain tightness to his lips, his eyes, and Pratt feels as though he's missed the bottom step on the way downstairs.

 

“I did what I did because I wanted to, and because I know that it feels good to have someone at your back. That's it. This ain't one-handed dynamic erotica, Deputy. I'm not some wild beast ruled by my sense of smell and the phases of the moon.”

 

Which is all well and good, but judging from the way the dark and unexplored pools of shadow inside of him are roiling and heaving, Pratt isn't so sure he can say the same for himself.

 

His face burns, and he feels the weight of Jacob's unhappiness settle over him, doing nothing to cool the scorching of his skin, rather only adding mysery and humiliation to the blaze.

 

And for some reason his chest is rising and falling hard, like they've been honest-to-god rage-screaming at each other rather than sniping pettily back and forth.

 

His face feels warm and sweaty and puffy with Something, and all of a sudden he is exhausted.

 

“Is it always like this?”

Not even having the time to feel embarrassed by how worn and scorched his voice sounds.

 

He's tired, he's confused, and he wants so many things that he can't even put into words, can't even fully pull together a picture of inside his head because when he tries, it all just seeps through his hands like smoke.

 

And he's expecting Jacob fucking Seed to do what he couldn't and sculpt his smoke for him. If he had any sense, the guy would run a fucking mile and avoid gas stations at midnight for the rest of his damn life.

 

Instead, his face softens, and he takes a step towards Pratt – small and slow, and it makes Pratt want to yank him in closer, shove all of that gentlemanly hesitation down his front steps and away from them.

 

“Not always. You're usually suppressed, right?” Once again dipping his head down, into Pratt's space. Straddling the line between intimate and private, but somehow never pricking at Pratt's overly-sensitive sense of propriety.

 

He nods miserably, glances up to try to drink in Jacob's reassuring little smile.

 

“Your body's havin' itself a little over-compensation party because it's trying to even itself out, that's all.”

 

The words are low and soothing, and Pratt closes his eyes the better to shut everything out and concentrate on it. Catches the slightly heavier sound of Jacob swallowing as he seems to stall out for just a moment.

 

“I, ah – can't speak to the – omega experience, obviously.”  
  
This time, Jacob's uncharacteristic lack of finesse and absolute certainty in himself doesn't yank on Pratt's petty, vindictive chain.

 

Instead, it makes his lips curve up minutely, and the laughter that flutters softly at the walls of his belly before gracefully evaporating, is gentle and warm. Doesn't bubble up from the raw and too-ready pool of competitive aggression that always lurks so close to his surface.

 

A small huff of self-deprecating breath just about manages to ghost over the back of Pratt's neck.

 

“Yeah, okay, I'm a dumbshit alpha. Don't I just know it, huh?” Warm and rueful, rumbling carefully around Pratt's head.  
  
“But from my experience? It's...intense. That's kinda the idea, you know? But it's not...you're not always gonna feel like your body's at war with itself, like you wanna shrug your skin off and get away from it all. A lot of that-”  
  
A pause, and Pratt has to clamp his teeth hard into his bottom lip to stop a horrifying, displeased sound from escaping his mouth.

 

Jacob softens his tone, and Pratt feels a hand on his chin, urging it up. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut, which Jacob ignores.

 

“A lot of that is just...all the shit that comes as part of your baggage, yeah? And that...that'll even out, too. In time. If you choose to do this again. If not....well, problem solved, huh?”

 

Pratt's eyes fall open of their own accord, and the patient, keen gaze fixed on his is almost too much. He nods, just to feel Jacob's hand brush his chin.

 

“I'm - I've always been unsuppressed. F'you...f'you wanna, I dunno, go over anything, or ask anything,” Jacob's voice is thick with an accent that Pratt barely recognises the peaks and troughs of, “you just...gimme a call in the morning, okay? We can meet wherever you want, if there's anythin' you wanna maybe check before your, uh...big day.”

 

Jesus, that lopsided grin and overly polite innuendo – Pratt smiles, a little hysterical and a little short on breath, as he realises what he thinks few in Hope County do.

 

Jacob Seed is a huge fucking dork, and Staci Pratt is Not Immune.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...it's a small update. Very small. But this is my attempt at getting back on the horse?

Staci happens to be of the opinion that it’s just as rude to be early as it is to be late.

He hasn’t even spent a full day sitting, staring at his phone and wondering whether the rules about call-backs that he had grown up with were still valid. Or whether they were even real things that existed anywhere outside of the imagination of giggling, clueless children who were only just beginning to snicker at the slow but steady stream of classmates that were presenting as Other and Weird.

He had tried so very hard not to get lost down that rabbit hole. Had felt greasy and slow as he pawed through facebook, forcing himself to close the app when he was faced with the hurtfully ordinary smiling faces of family surrounding alphas and betas who had seemed so much larger and meaner, with such a keen sense for blood in the water as children.

He almost drops the phone on his face when it has the audacity to suddenly ring and vibrate in his hands, the little shocks thrumming all the way through his fingers and down his arms, right the way through his entire, stupidly ready, stupidly tense body.

_Calm down, asshole. Nothing’s happening today, you fucking mess of a human being. Please have enough self-respect to not get slick at the thighs because of a goddamn phone call._

Picks up and tries to subtly shift his position on the couch, as he’d rather not feel his own body disobeying his commands as soon as it registers Jacob Seed’s voice on the other end of the line.  
  
“Hey.”

“Hey.” Silence, which Staci listens intently to because he’s not quite sure what he should be saying here, and he’s still kind of rolling in the idea that Jacob had broken those unspoken rules for _him._   
  
“This a bad time?”

Mild panic rising up his chest as he tries to shrug off the cold, familiar fingers of self-sabotage and remember that Jacob is a human being with Real Boy emotions and expectations that certain basic social cues will be adhered to, and as such would probably like an answer.

“No. No, this is...m’not doing anything. Still, y’know...on leave.”

Feeling his overly hot, sweating body try to curl into his apparently sweat-repellent clothing, which seems to be doing its utmost to ensure that he simply stews in his own awkward, messy biology and utter lack of social grace.

Skin almost shrinking as it tries to force his body to become smaller, take up less space, be fucking _quieter_ if he can’t manage to not say stupid shit.

“Uh huh. Sorta what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Tilting his head back to focus on the old, pre-him stain on the ceiling that he keeps meaning to paint over. Feeling the lump in his throat bob almost painfully when he has to reflexively swallow down any and all reaction to those words, social graces be damned.

“Dunno how long you have left of your leave, but I figure that ain’t exactly the crux of the issue here. Figure you don’t have long left until d-day anyway.”

“D-day? That’s so fucking cute, Seed.”

A snort, and Staci really doesn’t want to feel anything other than prickliness and irritation, which admittedly grows when his belly does stupid, naive little flips and twists, like bubbles are rising  in his chest.

“Only an expression, Peaches, yeah? Save all that energy for somethin’ a little more worthwhile. Hell, let all that pretty hair down for just a little while, and good christ, well you just might end up havin’ yourself some fun.”

The bubbles turn sour, leaving Staci’s mouth in that popping sound that he had imagined would only take place in his chest. His short, bitten nails still somehow manage to bend into his palm as the phone creaks under his grip, the sound twining and chorusing with the proper, low laughter it insists on piping right into his ear.

“Calm down, Peaches. Fun’s kinda the aim of the game here, y’know? M’not laughing at you every time I open my mouth.”

Staci thinks it’s probably a good thing that he didn’t let his body relax too much, because as soon as the first muscle begins to untense, Jacob makes a tooth-grating, humming sound of consideration.

“Maybe every other time. But you gotta relax. This ain’t a chore or a solemn duty that can’t be smiled at, and if it feels like it is, I would encourage you to go back to your doctor first thing in the morning and get him to give you some emergency suppressants. No hard feelings, no obligations.”

“No.”

Feels the word burst out of him like something that’s been lurking beneath his skin for a long time, sweated out, perhaps, in the near-constant perspiration that seems to just be A Thing for him now. Feels his teeth clamp down in immediate and reflexive response, uncaring if that particular horse has already bolted, muscle memory still insisting that the gate is closed.

“I don’t wanna throw in the towel. I don’t - I _want_ this. I’m just....I don’t fucking know _how._ ”

Frustrated with the words, their formless and sagging shape in his mouth, unable to identify for himself what they really mean, let alone to convey to Jacob what the hell he wants from him, what he hopes to gain or coax from this stupid push-pull rhythm that he can’t knock his body out of.

“Well, I got some real great news for you, Peaches; y’don’t _have_ to know how to do this, because y’ain’t ever done it before. I have. That’s what this whole thing is, right?”

Not even giving Staci time to do anything more than draw breath before he’s steamrolling over whatever flashing colours and half-formed hostilities Staci might have waiting on the tip of his tongue.

“With that in mind, is your dance card free this afternoon? We need to get some shit cleared up before we throw ourselves into this blind.”

Staci pushes himself up from the couch in the hopes that the sweat will feel slightly less damning if it’s not pressed insistently against his skin, if he’s not forced to wallow in it like the ebb and swell of the unruly, smashed-glass salad of feelings that Jacob Seed’s voice sends tumbling down his throat.

“Thought the _whole idea -_ ”

Uncaring that Jacob can’t even see the sarcastic little air quotes, allowing the small and futile act of rebellion to fill all the new spaces that have opened up inside him, all the alien pathways that echo with needs he’s not entirely familiar with.

“ - was that you’re the one who _can_ see where you’re fucking going. The whole _idea_ being that the blind don’t wanna be led by the blind.”

Can _feel_ Jacob nodding calmly, infuriatingly down the phone, curls his toes into the carpet in response, wondering whether Jacob is going to make them curl any more and then instantly regretting the thought.

“Uh huh, you’re not wrong, Peaches.”

“I _know_ I’m not.”

Another snort, and Staci barely bites down on the needlessly hostile but strangely compelling comparisons to pigs before they tumble out of his runaway mouth, which seems to be fizzing and popping with an even heavier measure of spite than usual.

“I’m happy that you’re such a self-confident, self-actualised little peach, Pratt. But y’didn’t let me finish, and I...I need you to just listen to me for a second, okay? This is important, Staci, an’ I don’t...I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings on this, yeah?”

The tone settles and evens noticeably, balm against his heated, itching skin, and Staci feels the absence where he would normally feel the need to draw himself up, insist that he doesn’t need to be shielded from realities.

“Okay. Yeah. M’listening.”

“Good - good. Thank you.”

Feels more than hears Jacob stumble over the possibility of the unspoken word, unspoken _praise,_ that makes Staci shiver and settle into some deep, warm space all at once. The catch of voice against the hastily hidden stray thread pulling something inside him, has him pressing the now-sweaty, unyielding surface of his phone hard against his face.

Has him not caring that he’s breathing, open-mouthed, almost directly into Jacob Seed’s ear as he weaves those smooth, low words around the threads inside Staci’s own chest.

“Y’not wrong, and I promise I’m not gonna disappoint you. You wanted someone who’s done this before, you got ‘em. You wanted someone who’s gonna let you set the pace, you got ‘em. You wanted someone who’s gonna show you how it feels and who knows how it _should_ feel. You got ‘em, Staci.”

Swallowing around his name in Jacob’s throat like that might quench the suddenly renewed burning there, like it might stop it from spreading throughout his body once more like it’s trying to drown him with the sheer force of absence, of need.

Has to sit himself back down into the still-hot indentation he had made into the couch. Has to lean carefully back against the ugly, stitch-scarred cushions as though he’s _sick and frail_ as Jacob’s breath seems to falter and rally in sympathy at the other end of town.

“Y’got all those things, Staci.”

Soft and quiet like there’s only one sheet and no clothes between them, and Staci tries not to reach his hands between his legs, berates himself for such breathless shamelessness in response to those low, unfettered words Jacob is laying so earnestly at his feet.

“Y’got ‘em, but those things alone don’t make for a good time in the sack, or the heat bed. They’re not ingredients. There are no set instructions to follow, throw ‘em all into the mix in the right order and get a perfect outcome every time. It’s...every heat is different. Every omega, every alpha is different. There’s no one size fits all, and if anyone ever tries to put that one over on you, I’d expect no less than for you to deliver a knee to the knot and run a goddamn mile away. Please, Staci.”

Fighting a losing battle against his hand, Staci can only hope that Jacob takes his croaked, tattered affirmative for exhaustion and confusion rather than the base, animal sounds he’s barely holding back.

“We gotta talk this thing out before we act it out. I can be with you this afternoon. That good for you?”

  



End file.
